Re:More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’
by tzs on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @08:55AM
(#29891464)
> What is the sense in assuming the prudent course of action is injecting a new pharmacological substance in your body instead of just allowing your own immune system to protect you naturally?
Your immune system provides very little natural protection until after you have been infected at least once, which subjects you to all the risks of actually having COVID. The point of vaccination is to get your immune system to that point without having to go through actually having COVID first.
> Most drugs go through multiple rounds, over many years, of FDA testing and often side effects are discovered.
Vaccines aren't most drugs. For the mRNA vaccines all ingredients are known to be long term safe except the actual mRNA itself, but the mRNA makes no permanent change nor does it last very long, so any bad effects from the mRNA itself must show up short term. (This has also been the case for all previous vaccines--if something bad was going to happen it didn't take long to show up).
The spike protein that the mRNA instructs some of your cells to make also does not persist. Your immune system does react to it which will cause long term changes--but those changes are the whole point of vaccination, and they are the same changes that would be made if you were not vaccinated and caught COVID.
In an alternate reality where SARS-CoV-2 was not going to become endemic and it might be possible to purposefully avoid getting COVID long enough for us to eliminate the virus you could maybe make a case for that instead of getting vaccinated.
We are not in that branch of reality. Unless you happen to have a short remaining lifespan, you will get COVID at some point. The health downsides of doing so unvaccinated are now a superset of the health downsides of getting vaccinated first.
> What is gained by taking it? Almost nothing.
An order of magnitude reduction in the risk of hospitalization, and an even larger reduction in the risk of death, from COVID.
Your immune system provides very little natural protection until after you have been infected at least once, which subjects you to all the risks of actually having COVID. The point of vaccination is to get your immune system to that point without having to go through actually having COVID first.
> Most drugs go through multiple rounds, over many years, of FDA testing and often side effects are discovered.
Vaccines aren't most drugs. For the mRNA vaccines all ingredients are known to be long term safe except the actual mRNA itself, but the mRNA makes no permanent change nor does it last very long, so any bad effects from the mRNA itself must show up short term. (This has also been the case for all previous vaccines--if something bad was going to happen it didn't take long to show up).
The spike protein that the mRNA instructs some of your cells to make also does not persist. Your immune system does react to it which will cause long term changes--but those changes are the whole point of vaccination, and they are the same changes that would be made if you were not vaccinated and caught COVID.
In an alternate reality where SARS-CoV-2 was not going to become endemic and it might be possible to purposefully avoid getting COVID long enough for us to eliminate the virus you could maybe make a case for that instead of getting vaccinated.
We are not in that branch of reality. Unless you happen to have a short remaining lifespan, you will get COVID at some point. The health downsides of doing so unvaccinated are now a superset of the health downsides of getting vaccinated first.
> What is gained by taking it? Almost nothing.
An order of magnitude reduction in the risk of hospitalization, and an even larger reduction in the risk of death, from COVID.